Autonomous Subsea Survey Infrastructure to Expand Across Europe

A multi-year agreement between ocean technology developer Bedrock Ocean Exploration and offshore positioning specialist First Marine Solutions will establish a new operational hub in Aberdeen for autonomous underwater survey capabilities.

Under the agreement, Bedrock will station a complete kit of its autonomous underwater vehicles at First Marine Solutions’ facility in Aberdeen to support UK and European offshore operations. Bedrock will provide data processing expertise and comprehensive training for local personnel, enabling First Marine Solutions to perform the majority of operations and maintenance locally without shipping equipment back to the United States. In turn, First Marine Solutions will provide dedicated facilities, logistics support, marine consultancy services, and a dedicated team of survey engineers trained in collaboration with Bedrock.

“FMS has built a reputation in the North Sea and beyond for being exactly the kind of partner the offshore energy sector relies upon; experienced, adaptive, and operationally excellent,” said Matthew Tirman, Chief Executive Officer of Bedrock. “Pairing our autonomous technology with FMS’s regional infrastructure and personnel allows us to deliver Bedrock-quality data to clients across the UK and Europe at the speed and cost the market needs. This partnership is a major step in how we bring the future of subsea insights to the operators building offshore energy infrastructure for the next century of the ocean economy.”

The combined service is designed to give clients in offshore energy and subsea infrastructure a vertically integrated solution, bringing together autonomous data acquisition, in-region operational support, and established survey, processing, and reporting capabilities.

“Bedrock represents a step change in how subsea data is collected, processed, and delivered as insights at a pace the industry hasn’t seen before. We are pleased to bring that capability to our clients, complementing the survey and consultancy services for which we are known across the offshore industry,” said Steven Brown, CEO of First Marine Solutions. “Hosting Bedrock’s AUV systems in Aberdeen, with our team trained to operate and maintain them, will result in faster response times, increased flexibility, and the opportunity to offer the offshore energy sector a genuinely differentiated service.”

Beyond field operations, both companies will collaborate to raise awareness of how autonomous subsea capabilities shape maritime industries. Data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development indicates that the ocean economy would have ranked as the world’s fifth largest economy in 2019 and anticipates the sector will quadruple in size between 1995 and 2050, driven in part by digitization and autonomous ocean technologies.